


May I Remember Death

by Rethira



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms
Genre: Implied Relationships, Implied Sexual Content, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-01-06
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-07 18:39:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,526
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1123072
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rethira/pseuds/Rethira
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Wrong</i>. Everything is <i>wrong</i>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	May I Remember Death

**Author's Note:**

> for this prompt on the best-enemies kink meme: "Not sure how dead this place is, but I thought of this and realized I'd never seen it done which seemed like kind of a shame.
> 
> One of the Master's previous incarnations (this anon has a preference for Ainley/Delgado) stumbles onto the Year That Never Was and is revolted by the man he becomes. Bonus points if his disgust is in part fueled by Simm!Master's treatment of the Doctor."
> 
> This fic is in second person!

You run. You run because you can’t bear staying. You think, fleetingly, that you should return to the Daleks, the Time Lords. Someone. But you don’t.

You run.

Your TARDIS stalls in a temporal eddy, and you’re almost relieved. It gives you something to think about that isn’t-

He’d just fallen. You hadn’t meant it. The Ogrons had jostled you and your finger had slipped. You hadn’t meant to shoot him.

He has to know that. You’re going to tell him- you are, he’ll listen, he always listens except when he doesn’t-

There’s a tear in time itself. A rip, billions of miles long and yet no bigger than a pinhole. You pause, for a fraction of a fraction of a second, your curiosity momentarily getting the better of you-

And then you fall through it.

 

The landing is bumpy, your TARDIS protesting with every fibre of her being.

_Wrong_. Everything is _wrong_.

You should just leave. You should just start her up again and make her take you both back to the Vortex. But instead you stroke her console gently, open her doors, and slip outside.

Into the Doctor’s TARDIS. It’s changed quite a bit – the white roundels exchanged for coral and grating on the floor. Every step you take _clangs_ , and the lighting is _terrible_. But you’d recognise this TARDIS anywhere. She touches your mind briefly, expresses grief and pain and sorrow and _wrongwrongbroken_ in a torrent that makes you flinch and reach for the comforting doors of your own TARDIS.

You give yourself a moment. And then you walk down the winding corridors, past rooms filled with wonders and memories and darkness, until you reach the console room.

And you understand.

“Who has done this to you?” you demand. The TARDIS stays silent, but for the hum of the paradox machine around her. “Tell me,” you say again, but it’s no use.

Part of you evaluates the work. It’s very good. Sturdy and strong, each piece with its place and function. A machine you could have been proud of making yourself, if the very thought of it didn’t turn your stomach. After all, what was the point? All it would take is the paradox breaking and all that hard work would be lost forever.

And, of course, living in a paradox sent you mad. One of the few things Time Lords were more susceptible to than other races, in fact, because of how acutely attuned they were to time itself.

So no, you would _never_ -

So that leaves the question, who would?

 

Later, you laugh. You should have known.

 

He’s cruel, this new you. Barbaric even. There is no logic in his plan, no logic in anything he does, and when you point this out to him, he backhands you with surprising force.

“I’m the Master here,” he sneers.

You call him a fool in return, and the ensuing pain is worth it.

If this is the man you become then you want no part of it.

 

He tells you about the Freak. No other name for him, just the Freak.

“I had him flayed today,” he says. “He was still alive when I started cutting out his organs.” His shirtsleeves are drenched with blood. It’s caked under his nails.

You call him disgusting, and stand by it when he slowly breaks your fingers.

He sets them himself, almost tenderly. “We can’t let anything happen to _you_ ,” he says. There’s something in his voice you dislike. Something possessive.

Your fingers take weeks to heal. He visits you every day, and talks about Gallifrey.

 

You ask after the Doctor once. His face shutters, and then he laughs, bright and cruel.

“You’ll never see him again,” he snaps.

Today, he brings a brazier and a poker, and he presses it hard against your skin.

You scream until you can’t scream anymore.

 

There are two maids that you see on a regular basis. They both wear similar looks of fear and resignation, and they work in near silence. They flinch when you move, and tremble when the metal orbs known as Toclafane come too close.

He’s busy this week, or so you’ve gathered. When he’s not around, your imprisonment is almost equitable. Your room is well appointed and you have an extended library, which is, of course, only useful when your hands are capable of holding books and turning pages. Your television set is equipped with every child entertainment programme from the last sixty years – he recommends Teletubbies, so you take pains to avoid it.

When the young maid visits, you catch her arm. She shakes like a leaf.

“Do you know the Doctor?” you ask.

She nods.

“Is he well?” you continue, and perhaps your fingers dig into her skin a little too hard.

She licks her lips. “Depends what you mean by _well_.”

“Alive, unhurt, what else could I mean by _well_ , you fool girl!” you snap.

She recoils from you as best she can. “He’s alive.” Her eyes flick about the room. “ _He_ keeps him upstairs. In a tent with a dog bowl.”

You drop her arm. “Go.”

She all but runs from your room.

 

“This is Lucy,” he says, spinning the woman around. She laughs breathily. “My wife,” he continues.

“Vile,” you reply.

“Today, Lucy’s going to help me!” he exclaims.

After breaking your feet, he fucks her on your floor, and laughs at the expression on your face.

 

“You deserve better,” you tell Lucy.

“I deserve nothing,” Lucy replies, her face carefully blank.

 

You try to escape – _try_ being the operative word here. You’ve just healed from the latest punishment – “It’s not torture! If you stopped being naughty I wouldn’t have to punish you!” – and are well enough to run. The Toclafane have orders not to shoot you, and they’re the only guards you have.

So you crack the electronic lock on your door – shoddy workmanship – and you run past the hovering Toclafane. They scream behind you, and alarm after alarm after alarm goes off, and you keep running.

Soldiers come. And they corral you away from the bowels of the ship, away from the TARDIS and _freedom_ , and into dank corridors full of smoke.

The room you duck into stinks of death. It doesn’t take you long to find out why.

 

Jack, as he introduces himself, makes you sick to your stomach. This is on top of the already distinct sensation of being trapped in a paradox.

But apart from that, Jack seems like a pleasant and amiable man, if somewhat prone to flirtation. He’s very grateful when you unchain him, and quite loud when he boisterously throws himself into the fray outside.

He tells you to run and you are almost happy to listen.

If only he weren’t quite so American, you might even like him.

 

There are bulkheads across the lower levels. Nowhere to go. Nowhere to run to.

“ _There_ you are,” he says. “Have fun on your little excursion?”

He has you escorted back to your room, and a deadbolt placed across the door. He brings you bits of Jack for a few days – bits of the Freak.

“He’s healing, you know. I’ll record his screams for you.”

Later on, he takes you down in manacles, and makes you watch as he tears Jack apart.

 

You hate him.

You hate him.

You hate him.

 

One night, when your ribs are still broken from that day’s punishments and you feel weakness in every inch of your body, he comes to you.

He touches you with hands that are almost gentle, and he whispers, “We won’t be alone, we won’t be alone, we won’t be alone,” into your skin.

If you could muster the strength, you’d break his neck.

 

He pours it into your mind. Every single thing.

The drums.

The drums the drums the drums.

 

Where is the Doctor? _Where is he?_ You need him. Why isn’t he here?

The drums are so loud.

 

When he peels your skin away, it doesn’t grow back. It used to. You used to be able to talk above a whisper, and you used to be able to move without bleeding.

You survive the burning – he’d said it would be a kindness, and a paradox on top of a paradox and if you weren’t mad before, well you are now.

You can feel the fire in your bones.

 

“Let me see him,” you rasp. “Let me see him.”

“No,” he says, with exquisite kindness. “No.”

 

The day it ends, you sit staring at your rotted hands, saying, “Regenerate. _Regenerate_.” Above you, another Time Lord screams the same at another you.

 

_One two three four_.

 

You never do remember how you get to your TARDIS. She takes off without waiting for your command.

You fall into a troubled sleep, and when you wake up, you forget.

 

(In your sleep, the Doctor crouches over the monster you become and weeps for him. He does not even see you standing there.)

 

You hate him you hate him you hate him you hate him you hate him you hate him you hate him.

 

You land on a planet called Traken, and set a plan into motion.


End file.
